Through a Veil of Mist
by SouthKentishTown
Summary: Chosen as successor to Queen Himiko of Sei'an City, Atsuko already faces a tough time living up to her late aunt's reputation, let alone with the storms and demons that arrive on the doorstep of Ryoshima Coast. But does a fox-faced stranger hold the key to her salvation, or to her destruction?
1. Storms

_**A:N/ Something slightly different this time, completely independent from my other Okami FF. Hope you enjoy.**_

_Storms_

Winds whipped the greying linen into a wild ecstasy; rain drove wood underwater, forcing the flailing boat ever further into the white-capped waves.

A clap of thunder.

Holes in the wood, cracks between the planks whistle and howl as the air rushes through the vessel, upturning desks, lashing salt spray against skin, sending parchment and clothing and hair into an uncontrolled frenzy.

The Gods, have mercy!

He doubts Kazegami or Gekigami themselves are capable of wielding such a tempest. And immediately blesses himself piously for such blasphemy.

A man staggers through his doorway, a sailor, his black hair splayed with wind, his eyes wide with shock, his breathing harsh and ragged. But it is not these that turn his heart to stone. It is the thin lines that lash the man's skin, drawing welts of blood. They are unmistakeable.

They are the work of demons.

The sailor's voice is torn from his throat by the greedy howling of the air, but he understands, he knows what he must do.

He rushes out, up the rickety wood stairs and into the glare of a thundering bolt that strikes the waves, igniting them a ghostly white. He has never seen a tempest so fierce, so unnatural. But why would have he?

He is simply a priest from Sapporo, taking the word of the Gods to Nippon.

A silence descends, cold and deadly. The winds fall silent, prey to some unknown force. He draws the mark of Amaterasu in the air, warding off the evil he senses just beyond the shadows that cloud his vision.

A low thud, a scream, and the tread of feet along the deck.

Panic seizes him by the throat, and he staggers back as the blackness moves closer, until it blocks out even the slightest of light that might have seeped through the storm clothed clouds.

Another roll of thunder, a drum call for the darkness.

There is a bolt, illuminating the terrible creature, its monstrous disfigurement, its sadistic grin. His breath leaves him, and he blesses himself.

It chuckles, and speaks. "That won't do you any good."


	2. Succession

_Succession_

She was cleaning out the tea room when the news reached her of her parents' death. It seemed back then a thing so hideous and inhuman, their carriage swarmed by demons as they travelled eastwards to pay homage to her aunt in Sei'an.

Now, it seems little more than a passing sadness, a brief choking sensation. The years have dulled all memories to snippets of images, her life has been reduced to serving alongside stable hands for so many years, she forgets often her time spent in some of the great houses of Ryoshima.

She is tending to a horse when the memories reach her, along with a short, stammering messenger dressed in the navy and red of the royal livery.

He talks to her great aunt in short, stunted words, eyes darting nervously from parchment scroll to the imperious black of the house owner's eyes. The aging hag's expression changes from one of affront to one of delight in a matter of heartbeats, and she talks vaguely as she tears the startled man towards the stables.

She does not think they will have any interest in her, and turns back to the chocolate coloured mare she tends to. The two enter the stables with a start, their refined noses curling with the sudden stench.

"Atsuko!" Her great aunt's voice is louder than a clap of thunder, and invariably more terrifying. She turns guiltily, half expecting the moustached old goat to accuse her of some minor misdemeanour.

Instead, she is greeted with a sickening grin from sharp teeth concealed behind clownishly rouged lips, and a curious, bemused stare from the small man beside her. The woman beckons her, and she steps forward anxiously.

"A spitting image, isn't she?" The hag continues avidly to the narrow eyed messenger.

He says nothing, but approaches the girl and begins to examine her. In his professional opinion, she doesn't look much like the late Queen at all, but then, he is not paid to think professionally. He takes each hand, glaring at the rough, blunted nails and ragged fingers. He lifts a strand of hair, turning up his nose at the black greasy mass.

He draws back to look at her. Perhaps, he supposes, if she was scrubbed up enough, the wide eyed stable girl would bear more than a passing resemblance to her late aunt, enough to act as her successor.

A thought flickers behind his eyes, chased by a low command, and he turns back to the old woman.

"The very Queen herself lives on in this room."

The gross smile widens, and he turns his attentions back to the shocked girl. She stands awkwardly, but with some innate, albeit suppressed, grace. Yes. He has decided.

"What's going on?" The girl mutters softly.

"You'll speak when spoken to!" The old hag snaps. She recoils, and falls silent. "And you'll speak with all the grace of your station."

The girl throws him a questioning look, and he sighs. Sometimes, the innocent have to make sacrifices, he reassures himself. "I kneel before you, Atsuko, Queen of Sei'An City."


	3. Selection

_Selection_

Her heart is racing as she ascends towards the throne.

It seems not so long ago she was slipping on her faded green kimono and tending to the horses, and now, she spends hours getting ready for this moment. Her attendants rushed around her, pulling her into the tight white kimono adorned with a red belt, before forcing her into a heavy blue and red robe that tapers down at both her feet and her hands, covering them.

Her face is powdered into a mask of white, and red and black kohl heavily applied to her eyes. She catches a glimpse of herself as they fix her hair, pinning it under her headdress as they hand her a leaf fan.

She is no longer herself.

Atsuko is not the person that stares back at her imperiously from the looking glass, it's Queen Himiko.

The resemblance is not merely uncanny, it's familial. As she exits, still marvelling at her appearance, she kneels before a small shrine to the mist God Kasugami. Since its foundation, the God has been the protector of the clan of Yamatai, as they were the protectors of her Divine instrument, the Crystal ball.

Yet as Queen Himiko had fallen prey to the powers of the Dark Lord, so had the Crystal ball.

The thought chills her as she walks between the rows of sly-eyed, open-eared courtiers, who watch her with thinly veiled greed.

She reaches the end of the corridor, and listens as the ceremony declares her the closest surviving relative of the Queen of Sei'an, Himiko of Yamatai. From the priest's babble she can make out details. Details such as the fact the Emperor turned down returning to the post.

By the close, her legs ache with the force of keeping her standing upright, and she can feel her face flushing red hot beneath the white paint with the force of a hundred eyes on her.

She can hear her voice tremble as she recites the end of her rite of succession, the part declaring her the servant of the peoples of Ryoshima and Sei'an, the vassal of the thirteen Brush Gods. The part that declares her life over, eternally tied to the throne.

Her voice falters towards the end, and she can see them lean forward in their seats, their eyes igniting with a predatory glare.

No.

She mustn't allow them to think she is weak. So she simply swallows the nerves bundling in her throat, and continues, finishing with a ceremonial flourish of her leaf fan.

They stand to applaud, false joy animating their features. But they are all wolves, waiting for this young, inexperienced new Queen to make just a single wrong decision. The wrong decision that will break her.


	4. Segregation

_**A/N: Thanks a million to Daemonesca for the follow, it's great to know someone is interested in this one!**_

_Segregation_

Her days fall into a routine, signing official documents, talking to ambassadors and courtiers alike, and writing royal legislature.

But she is no born ruler. Nor has she been raised with the royal seal. She struggles with diplomacy, torn between decisions, between logic and appeasement, tripping over her airs and mumbling her graces.

Yet the worst news has yet to come.

It happens merely a week after her coronation. Storms and tempests, vicious, violent and unpredictable begin to systematically destroy Ryoshima coast from north to south, ripping people from their beds, tearing the land away from beneath them, crushing whatever little they have.

And with them comes demons.

They come in hoards, marauding imps, rampaging chimera, storms of every type of demon known to western Nippon. They ambush the homeless, preying on the weak and the abandoned. Rumours spread like wildfire, from house to house, coast to coast, penetrating the very heart of the Capital with a shadow of fear. They say Oni Island has been seen yet again of Ryoshima Coast.

People flee the coast in droves, streaming towards the capital until refugees tail out of the city gates. But they cannot contain them. They overrun the city; there is no room for a few hundred more inhabitants, as they spill out onto the streets and into the canal.

Fights break out between groups, bodies are found daily face down in the placid waters of Lake Beewa. The guards cannot cope, they appeal to the Queen.

But she is torn, divided between the demands of the aristocrats and the demands of her people.

False counsellors whisper in her ear of fluctuating clan loyalties, of the need to keep the commoners below the ruling classes, while maids are slipped money from open hands to slip drugs in the Queen's tea and 'advice' in her ears.

She believes, mistakenly, that she can trust them.

And so she makes her decision, and closes the aristocratic quarter from the commoners, segregating the filthy rich from the destitute poor. But even the drugs they administer to her tea, whatever headaches they induce, cannot block the cries of the impoverished from her ears.

And so still the capital's main gates remain open to the haunted, until the streets are rife with crime and disease, and her name becomes little more than filth.

Silver tongued courtiers drink tea late that night and toast to a victory. Soon, soon, they whisper among themselves. Soon the Queen will be begging for an alliance. And soon they will be the ones running Sei'an City.


	5. Sedition

_Sedition_

Atsuko refuses to let them win, to let the storms and the demons and the devious courtiers defeat her so easily.

She was raised productive, taught by her brash aunt to solve the unsolvable, whatever the cost. It is her lineage that also makes stubborn, that refuses to let her shy away from her problems, that tells her there is always a solution.

So in the small hours of the morning, she lights a small candle to Kasugami with a prayer, and summons her only hope.

The Tao Troopers.

It takes an hour for one to arrive, a slightly perturbed looking man wearing a pale purple shirt trimmed with dark purple and with two pom-poms the same colour as his trousers. He stands atop two red, single-tooth geta and wears the gold feathered mask and conical black hat of the Tao Troopers. In his left hand, he twists a large trident.

He approaches her with no emotion, and sweeps into a low bow.

"Queen Atsuko, to what do I owe this pleasure?" He says it without so much as a hint of sarcasm, yet his words raise a spasm of annoyance in her as she grips the handle of her fan tightly, turning her knuckles brazen white.

"You are a Tao Trooper, are you not?" She tries to inject some regal air, some refinement, into her clipped words.

"That I am." He gives a slight nod.

"Then you will help Sei'an City?"

"We have been the protectors of Sei'an for over 200 years, your highness. We will never cease to help her when she is in a time of need." But she can hear a note in his voice, a slightly cautious tone. She nods at him tersely to continue. "But never since our foundation have we been without a Captain. It seems Captain Waka has taken leave of us your highness, and without him we are quite disorganised."

Her hands dig tighter, and her knuckles click under the mounting pressure. He doesn't understand. She doesn't simply want their help, she needs their help.

"Please..." Her mask of royalty is fading, she pleads with him, the desperation of a girl replacing the refinement of a ruler.

"Your highness, I'm afraid that in our current situation there's nothing we can do."

Anger, pure fury boils under her skin, raising hot tears to the corner of her eyes. She does not need their menial help, she tells herself as her facade begins to slide. She can rule the city without them lifting their fingers. She dismisses him abruptly, ashamed of her weakness.

He leaves with a curt bow. She watches his retreating back, and then collapses to the floor. That night, bandits raid the Imperial warehouses, setting fire to one of the barges. And slowly, piece by piece, her kingdom continues to crumble.


	6. Separation

_Separation_

Less than a week later, she is visited by her family, along with a bundle of cunning fingered courtiers. They tell her what she already knows, that chaos is growing, anarchy brewing along the shores of Lake Beewa.

She tunes out after a while, listening instead to the soft hiss as a stick of incense burns down to a husk, calming her storm of emotions.

Then they drop the bombshell.

They tell her that she cannot think to survive the week if her popularity and influence continue to plummet, and they offer an ultimatum.

They want her to marry her great-uncle, the Emperor.

She freezes, her blood turning to ice in spite of the tempestuous heat. She drops the fan, exposing her shock. Not only is he forty years her elder, but he is a recluse, conversing only with his guards and those who trade him demon fangs.

Surprise renders her speechless against her opposition, helpless to do anything but open and close her mouth wordlessly.

Until her great aunt informs her to chose an expression more fitting to her position.

Wrestling control of her facial muscles, she turns her expression of shock into a blank mask. "I'm afraid I cannot marry him."

"Why ever not?" A sharp eyed courtier remarks. "Not only would it strengthen your claim and position on the throne and potentially provide you with heirs, but you have no other option, your highness." He adds the honorary on at the end, as if it is almost an afterthought, and he is talking to unruly child rather than the ruler of the capital of Nippon.

"Then I will find another option. I can still act in the best interests of my people without a husband. I'm sure lowering the bridge at the City Checkpoint will encourage trade between western and eastern Nippon." She expects him to panic, for his smarmy grin to fade.

He owns one of the largest luxury goods markets in western Nippon, but is vulnerable to any eastern markets, where the goods are both cheaper, and easier to come by.

However, his smile seems to grow at the threat. Her own confidence begins to subside.

"Then I'm afraid you leave us with no choice your highness."

"What do you mean?" A touch of panic taints her words. "As your ruler I demand you explain yourselves to me!"

"We will have to suspend you from power." Her heart stops beating. A dull lifelessness overwhelms her. "You must understand it _will _only be temporary. But for the time being you must remain separated from the people, within the confines of the Imperial Palace where you are safest."

She does not respond. Something within her has died, and she watches the entourage leave with hollow eyes. She has failed her people completely.


End file.
